Extended Discussion Toolkit

Extended discussion in literacy is the main focus of Manaiakalani for this year. When the data for Manaiakalani was analysed there was a gap within extended discussion. Due to this it is their focus for this year. 

Extended discussion focuses on building the learners vocabulary, encouraging rigorous discussions, respecting others opinions and ideas, and extends their independence with peer discussions. 

I attended a Manaiakalani toolkit by Amie Williams which gave some tools used for extended discussion.

Extended discussion is a conversation technique that is used to help learners comprehend and understand texts by discussing with their peers. This allows them to incorporate their point of view and encourages open conversations without the assistance of the teacher. 

Students are given different roles in order to implement extended discussion into their reading sessions. These roles could include but are not limited to the leader, questioner, comprehender, opposer and clarifier. These roles are given to learners in order to encourage learner initiated conversation. These roles are recorded on cards with some talk points added to remind and help learners understand their role for the discussion.

Scaffolds such as talk cards are needed to prompt learners discussion and to guide them in these extended discussions. The following are examples of these:

The tools that help when incorporating extended discussion into the reading groups included Jamboard, Screencastify, voice typing through Google Docs and Google Sheets to record and track progress.

I thoroughly enjoyed this toolkit as it gave me a few ideas when it comes to implementing this technique into my class. There was a lot of information regarding the background of extended discussion and tools that aid this implementation.